BOOKS
The May Bride
“I didn’t stand a chance: looking back over thirteen years, that’s what I see. In that very first instant, I was won over, and of course I was: I was fifteen and had been nowhere and done nothing, whereas Katherine was twenty-one and yellow-silk-clad and just married to the golden boy. Only a few years later, I’d be blaming myself for not having somehow seen… but seen what, really? What – really, honestly – was there to see, when she walked into Hall? She was just a girl, a lovely, light-stepping girl, smiling that smile of hers, and, back then, as giddy with goodwill as the rest of us…”
Jane Seymour is a shy, dutiful fifteen-year-old when her eldest brother, Edward, brings his bride home to Wolf Hall. Katherine Filliol is the perfect match for Edward, as well as being a breath of fresh air for the Seymour family, and Jane is captivated. Over the course of a long, hot country summer, the two become close friends and allies, while Edward is busy building alliances at court and advancing his career.
However, only two years later, the family is torn apart by a dreadful allegation made by Edward against his wife. The repercussions for all the Seymours are incalculable, not least for Katherine herself. When Jane is sent away, to serve Catherine of Aragon, she is forced to witness another wife being put aside, with terrible consequences. Changed forever by what happened to Katherine Filliol, Jane comes to understand that in a world where power is held entirely by men, there is a way in which she can still hold true to herself.
“We were trespassers in this night-time world. As I strode after Katherine, my nightdress clamoured around my knees and shins. Shadows were everywhere, sleek, their clarity unnerving. Her own shadow ahead of me slid below her like a fish just beneath the water’s surface, quicksilver but blunt-nosed, disturbingly insensate. Above it, though, her steps were jaunty tossing of ankle bones as if they were handfuls of pebbles. I was awed by her purposefulness – she was so very full of life – and had the sudden, dizzying notion that she might be carrying a baby: the start of a baby like a pearl inside her. It seemed to me, then, that nothing had happened at Wolf Hall for as long as I could remember, but now, marvellously, anything could happen.”